The Unfair Fair: January 2008

Wednesday, 30 January 2008

The Unfair Fair

This blog catalogues the inaugural UNFAIR FAIR, which took place in Rome from Friday 29 February to Monday 3 March 2008. The first UNFAIR FAIR project was a sort of event, situation, exhibition, intervention, action and infiltration timed to coincide with two new contemporary art fairs in Rome - ARTEcontemporaneamodernaROMA and ROMA (The ROAD TO CONTEMPORARY ART). The UNFAIR FAIR is in no way formally associated with these art fairs, though it does have a strategic relation to the mainstream economy they represent. Whereas the raison d'être of the contemporary art fair may be characterised by maximization and accumulation, the conditions of the UNFAIR FAIR relate more comfortably to the states of minimization and disintegration.

Three propositions inform the makeup of the UNFAIR FAIR - Marcel Duchamp's Unhappy Readymade (1919), Robert Filliou's Principle of Equivalence - Well Done, Badly Done, Not Done, and the state of the contemporary art-market economy. Rather than reflect the overweening economic formula common to most art fairs, in which the art on display becomes little more than window dressing for current market forces, the UNFAIR FAIR adopts an economy of form and means where experimentation and the poetics of play are emphasised over commodified products and the imperatives of the market.

More then 80 international artists have been invited to contribute to the UNFAIR FAIR. A special exhibition set and display will be created by German artist Wolfgang Berkowski.

Details

Dates: 29 February – 3 March 2008

Preview: Friday 29 February , 18:00 to 24:00

Venue: Loto Arte, Via Civinini, 41 - 00197 Rome

Opening hours:
Friday 29 February 18:00 - 24:00
Saturday 1 February 9:30-14:00 and 15:00 - 24:00
Saturday 2 March 9:30–14:00 and 15:00 - 19:30
Monday 3 March 9:30–14:00 and 15:00 - 19:30

List of participating artists

Caroline Achaintre
Nina Jan Beier & Marie Jan Lund
Walead Beshty
It's our pleasure to serve you (Kerstin Brätsch, Allison Katz, Georgia Sagri, Adele Röder)
Susanne Bürner
Tereza Buskova
Etienne Chambaud
Nicolas Chardon
Jason Dodge
Clairefontaine
Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard
Mauricio Guillén
Alban Hajdinaj
Bethan Huws
Bettina Buck
Benoît Maire
Charlotte Moth
Guillaume Pinard
Falke Pisano
Navin Rawanchaikul
Lili Reynaud-Dewar
Manuela Ribadaneira
Jacopo Miliani
Italo Zuffi
Eléna Nemkova
Ra di Martino
Massimo Grimaldi
Carla Zaccagnini
Georgia Kostretsos
Christodoulos Panayotou
Stanislao di Giugno
Alessandro Piangiamore
Sandrine Nicoletta
Stefania Galegati
Magnus Thierfelder
Artemis Potamianou
Francesco Arena
Goldiechiari
Maria Brigita Karantzi
Allsop&Weir
Alessandro Sarra
Federico Pietrella
Rossella Biscotti
Giuseppe Pietroniro
Kostis Velonis
Isola e Norzi
Dane Mitchell
Nico Dockx
Christian Proaño
Gregor Passens
Richard Crow
A Constructed World
Andrea Salvino
Bik van der Pol
Carl Trahan
Cesare Pietroiusti
Cindy Smith
Valentino Diego
Domenico Mangano
Gea Casolaro
Pernille Kapper Williams
René Gabri
Richard Aldrich
Ursula Mayer
The Metropolitan Complex
Jacob Dahl Jürgensen
Johan Tirén
Pietro Sanguineti
Benedetta Jacovoni
Marco Raparelli
Haris Epaminonda and Daniel Gustav Cramer
Lorenzo Scotto di Luzio
Luca Vitone
Meris Angioletti
Özlem Altin and Olivier Maarschalk
schleuser.net
Robert Orchardson
Vedovamazzei
Carola Bonfili
Runo Lagomarsino
Wolfgang Berkowski

Produced by 1:1projects
in collaboration with Ines Musumeci Greco, Loto Arte

Curators: Cecilia Canziani and Vincent Honoré

Communication and Production: Athéna Panni

Editor: Louise Garrett

Catalogue Designer: Wolfgang Berkowski

About

The Principle of Equivalence - Well done, badly done, not done

In 1966, Robert Filliou proposed that the world economy no longer be considered from a political angle, but rather from a poetic point of view, so that work as pain would become work as play. From 1968, he developed his Principle of Equivalence - the principle of the equality in value of the Well Done, the Badly Done and the Not Done. Filliou proposed an unfinished work, by essence not done, but in the process of being done, realised in a state of "Permanent Creation" - "to decide nothing, to choose nothing, to want nothing, to possess nothing, fully awake, sitting quietly, doing nothing."

Going, going gone for ... how much?

The highest price ever paid for a Francis Bacon (£14 million), for a photograph (an Andreas Gursky, 1.7m)... all auction records were shattered in London last week. But who is buying art at these prices - and, frankly, is it worth it? Carole Cadwalladr went in search of the top bidders.

The Observer
Sunday February 11, 2007
Click here to read the article

Silly money

5 Dec 1766
Date of first sale held in Pall Mall, London by James Christie, founder of Christie's

$104.168,000
Record sale at a fine art auction: for Picasso's Garcon a la Pipe, May 2004, Sotheby's, New York

£186,645,960
Value of total sales realised last week at Sotheby's, London

40
Record number of days for an auction sale (for Duke of Buckingham's collection at Stowe House by Christie's in 1848)

£2.51bn
Total global arts sales by Christie's in 2006

85
Number of works sold for over £1m last week at Sotheby's and Christie's, London

£1.7m
The record price for a photograph sold at auction (Andreas Gursky's 99 Cents II, Diptychon sold last week at Sotheby's, London)

£70.4m
Total revenue from Christie's Post War and Contemporary Art Sale last Wednesday. This broke the record set by Sotheby's just 24 hours earlier for a contemporary art auction in Europe.